Sparkle & Whim Printshop

I started Sparkle & Whim about a year and a half ago for various reasons. I had a job with a lot of downtime. I had a background in retail. I had spent the previous holiday working for an online boutique. I like jewelry. I like pretty, sparkly things. And so, Sparkle & Whim was born.

I knew I was going to have a good time picking out the pieces to put on the site. I knew the business end of it would be challenging, but something I might enjoy learning. What I didn't expect was how much fun I had actually building the site. I loved setting up the boutique. I loved picking the theme and the layout and all the colors. I spent so much time playing around with it. And I still am constantly tweaking everything. It will never be just right ;)

I bought Photoshop Elements and started teaching myself how to use it. I spent hours on Google and YouTube trying to figure out how to do certain things. Will I ever be an expert? No way. Have I surprised myself with how much I have learned? Definitely!

A few months ago, I bought a new logo for Sparkle & Whim. It is perfect and beautiful and I love it. But I started to think that I could probably do that, too. I had been making a list of fonts that I liked and I opened up my Photoshop and started playing around. After a weekend, I had a couple of branding kits that I had put together and I decided to take it a step further.

I put the kits on Etsy, along with some business card designs and downloadable prints and all of a sudden, I had a new shop! And Sparkle & Whim had a little sister :) At first, it was fun to check the stats and see if people were looking. And they were! And then (wait, what?) people bought things! And they used them on their blogs and business pages! It brings me such joy to see them in actual use :)

Here are some of the items from the shop (just click on the image for details!):